The last time I was in Crandon was 4 years and I’d always wanted to come back. The race is always a lot of fun and the track is what short course is supposed to be, fast and on the edge at every turn. Watching turn one at the start of the Cup race is something everyone needs to see and feel in person. I also mounted a remote camera on Kyle Leduc’s truck hoping to get some good photos from the turn, more on that later.

The weekend started with the traditional Labor Day Parade in downtown Crandon. Everyone comes out to see all the racers with their trucks on display, and then at high noon the parade runs down the main street.

The famous wood car of Crandon always comes out and makes an appearance.

100 Ounce Big Gulp cup, ice cream cone, and a smile. Only thing he was missing was his sleeves.

This is the first year the cup race will be run under the name “Amsoil Cup”, so they revealed the new trophy for the winner.

A funny moment from the parade was when Robby Gordon was checking out a Classix car (think of a 79′ Buick with a cage, shocks through the roof, and rust) and the owner of the car yelled to him, “If you like it its for sale!”

Normally right after the parade the racing kicks off with practice and qualifying, but because it had been raining since Thursday TORC decided rather then tear the course up, cancel everything until Saturday. I was bummed because it would mean less shooting on the track, but it was the right move so that the weekend could go on as scheduled.

Skate shoes and mud don’t mix

It felt good to be out on the track again in Crandon. There is just something about being out there that you can’t really describe without actually being there. You can sense the tradition 41 years of racing there walking around the pits, the race course, and see people of all ages at the track.

Before I go into all the photos of the racing from the weekend, first I’ll show a few photos from the remote camera.

A few months ago I mounted my trusty Canon 20D body on Kyle Leducs truck at the Las Vegas LOORRS race. Its been a while since I’ve done it, and since Crandon has the most famous turn in offroad racing I thought it would be a perfect time to bring the remote cam out of retirement.

I used the same mount as before, a simple piece of tubing cut in half long way with a ball head mounted to it. Last time I used a Pocketwizard Multimax to fire the camera, but after damaging it and a $175 repair bill later I decided to use a cheap intervalometer I got off Amazon.com for about $30. Here is the link to the one I got, if you get one make sure to get the right one for your camera.

Canon Intervalometer

As far as settings go I again used the same from last time. AV mode set at f5.6, 400ISO to keep the shutter over 1/1000, and pre-focused the camera before hand.

My goal was to get a good shot in turn one with a bunch of trucks behind Kyle and lots of roost. While that situation never happened, I was able to get a few decent shots from the weekend that I liked. Here are a few of them. Note that I kept about 15 shots from the whole weekend, out of around 1300 shots the camera took. Remote cameras are always hit or miss, you just hope to get a few good shots.

Adrian Cenni and Steve Barlow say hi to the camera.

A little vibration during the shot caused it to be a little blurry.

Since I didn’t get to shoot on the track on Friday I was anxious to get out there on Saturday. As luck would have it when we woke up Saturday morning there was still a little rain in the air, so I was worried the races may get pushed back again. Anyone who’s been to Wisconsin knows the weather up there is very unpredictable, and a little before the first race the rain would stop and the track would get a chance to dry out.

Rather then talk about each day I thought for this blog I would just show some of my favorite photos at random and talk a little about each one. Here we go!

Turn 2 of the course is always fun for me to shoot because its a very high speed turn and you can get some great panning shots there. If you’ve seen the cover of Dezert People 4, the shot of Jonny Greaves is from this spot. Here Todd Leduc got bumped by another racer and caused him to go over.

Dezert People 4 Cover

Here you can see the huge crowd that always shows up for Crandon races. Whether its the Cup race or the first race of the day there are always people cheering.

Most famous turn in offroad racing.

Monster Energy’s Casey Currie

This is the largest jump on the track, in previous years the jump has been steeper so they weren’t going quite as big as years past.

Steve Barlow catches a rut in the last turn during Saturday’s Pro4 race.

Another unique thing about Crandon is the water truck. Typically all water trucks are one man operations where the driver controls the water, but in Crandon they have someone on top of the truck spraying the track. Another thing that gives Crandon a personal touch.

One spot on the track I’ve never shot before is the last straight away and 180 degree turn before they start heading towards turn 1 again. It has some great backgrounds with all the trees and offers a different perspective to the course.

The heart and soul of racing at Crandon.

After eating dinner in town Saturday night, driving back into the pits we passed the large Crandon Raceway sign. I knew that there was going to be a fireworks show later that night, so I thought it would be a good chance to try and get a nice shot of the sign all lit up with some fireworks in the background. After about 100 shots or so here is one that came out during the grand finale.

Todd Leduc repairs some damage to his Pro 2 working late into the night.

Ricky Johnson won the points championship in Pro2, so his team helped him celebrate on Sunday.

On the back side of the course there is a platform about 40′ high that overlooks most of the course. Its a great place to get a different angle, the only down side is the only thing holding the platform up is 3 long rusty tubes and a couple shoty welds .

Another angle of the back straight away.

One of my favorites from the weekend, I like how the lighting is, the position of the truck, and all the dirt flying. Just works for me.

This is a shot of Monster Energy’s Casey Currie celebrating after winning the points championship in Prolite. I wanted to get a different angle then everyone else who would be right at the podium, so I got back a few hundred feet away and shot it with the 300mm lens.

The weekend always ends with the big cup race where the Pro2′s and Pro4′s all race at the same time, with the Pro2′s getting a head start. Amsoil’s Scott Douglas would take the win in his Pro 4 after a hard fought battle with Redbull’s Steve Barlow.

All in all I had a great time in Crandon and can’t wait to get back there again. Here is a link to the rest of my photos from the weekend, enjoy!

2010 TORC Crandon Photo Gallery

One of the biggest events of the year for rock crawling is the King of the Hammers race out in Lucerne Valley, CA. This year it was a 140 mile loop with a mixture of desert racing and challenging rock trails thrown into the mix. Its a great event that every year keeps growing into a huge week long event.

Driving through the pits this year when I first arrived was a good sign that the event was a success. If you were looking for your friend, you’d need GPS coordinates to find him in the huge mass of 5th Wheels and RV’s. If they told you “look for my RV, its white and parked in main pit”, you’d be looking around for hours.

I was at KOH shooting for Pirate4x4.com, THE website for anything related rock crawling. I got there Thursday morning to check out contingency, but more importantly check out the course for spots I wanted to shoot during the race on Friday. My goal was to try and get everyone off the start, then begin following the lead pack around until somewhere towards the end and shoot till it got dark. I also wanted to find a nice balance of shooting desert and rock crawling since the race makes up both.

The first spot I would shoot on race day would end up being right at race mile 1.

I stayed there until all the race vehicles went by, then headed over to race mile 34 to catch them one more time. The good thing about the KOH race is that because of the rock obstacles throughout the course the average speed is a lot lower then a desert race. This would give me more time to spend at each spot to catch more people coming by.

Race mile 34 was a long downhill sand hill, into a right hand turn. I got there with about 15 minutes to spare before the leader came through, and I was pretty surprised at how some of the spectators were handling themselves at this spot. I think spectators at desert races get a bad wrap, especially the whole “flatbiller” sterotype, but the spectators at KOH can be pretty clueless. In the photo below you can see one of the leaders coming down the sandhill.

No only a few minutes before that you had spectators driving BACKWARDS up the course to get to the top of the hill to spectate. What makes matters worse is that most of them probably didn’t have a radio so they had no idea they were a few minutes from dying. If the race course is hot stay off it! Here is a shot of Shannon Campbell at the bottom of the hill where it makes a right hand turn.

I next headed over to race mile 35 to a nice sharp turn. I scouted the spot out the day before and thought it would be a good place to catch some desert action, and hopefully get some dirt getting thrown into the air.

I stayed at race mile 35 as long as I could before I had to head to the next spot. While I was there friend and fellow photographer Chad Jock, came by and convinced me that we could beat the leaders to a rock section called Elvis. It was a deviation from my game plan but it sounded like a good idea so off we went. I was lucky enough to borrow a Yamaha Rhino from Lance @ Pirate4x4, so I must apologize to him for the beating the rhino took . We had to hurry to make sure we caught them so the rhino suspension was put to the test. Like last year, I think I had more fun driving the rhino around then actually shooting the race.

We were lucky enough to catch the first two leaders to the spot, but because I wanted to get to another rock section further on the course I only stayed there for them. There was also a celebrity sighting at Elvis.

On the way to the next spot, we would stop along the course as vehicles went by to grab a few more photos, and I actually got one of my favorite shots from the race. I like it because it tells the desert side of the story, and also has a nice background with the snow covered mountains.

Up next was Sledgehammer, and the final spot I would be shooting from for the race. The reason I wanted to shoot here was because this spot gets the largest crowd of all the rock sections, and also last year there was some great action. In this photo you can see the large crowd within the canyon.

The great thing about the KOH race is that the spectators can be right up on the action. The bad thing about the KOH race is that the spectators can be right up on the action. One stuck throttle and you’re one incident away from a race closure.

I planned on staying at Sledgehammer the rest of the day, but another friend and photographer Nolan, who was also shooting for Pirate4x4 showed up so I decided to leave so that we wouldn’t have the same shots for the site. The day before scouting for spots I came across a decent desert section in the last few miles of the course so I headed over there.

Here is another nice overview shot in the desert.

Overall I had a great time at the race and its good to see the sport grow every year. I think next year they will need to police some of the more popular spectator areas, but in all reality as long as the course is open to all it will be next to impossible to do. Dumb spectators always out number volunteers.